CRYSTAL CITY: From standardizing paint schemes to buying fewer types of valves, the Navy is going all-out to save money as budgets tighten. This new emphasis on affordability goes beyond the usual mundane economies to a sea change in how the service develops new vessels and technologies, with the much-criticized Littoral Combat Ship as the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.How to unlock innovation and savings for DoD: “commercial,” not COTS
Overmatch is fleeting and while traditional acquisitions can’t always keep up with new threats, a different and approved practice can.
WASHINGTON: The US military wants robots that can work alongside soldiers without needing constant remote-control attention to keep them from knocking into things. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. While computers can out-process a human mind now by crunching huge numbers of numbers, when it comes to physical objects, even state-of-the-art robots make human…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: Minesweeping and “fast” are two words you’d normally be nervous about hearing in the same sentence. But as the Navy looks to new technologies to remedy its decades-long neglect of mine warfare — a favorite weapon of both Iran and China — it sees real potential to speed up a painfully slow…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.LAS VEGAS: “We’ve been spoiled,” the colonel said. Since 9/11, the military has had “giant pots of money” to throw at urgent problems without going through the full acquisition process. It’s been a bonanza for contractors with innovative technology to offer. But as the war winds down, Lt. Col. Stuart Hatfield of the Army Capabilities…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Taxpayer dollars fund all sorts of strange things, from mysterious drones to vacuum-powered wall-climbers, but one unlikely investment that’s kept paying off for half a century is the Navy’s Floating Instrument Platform. In its research mode, with sensor arms extended over the water, FLIP looks like an alien probe out of the sci-fi stinker Battleship,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Shipboard laser program launched @ONR (http://bit.ly/K02uoi) – for why the Navy needs lasers, see http://bit.ly/JKmni0 SydneyFreedberg
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: I walked past a sandy desert, a littoral waterway and a steamy jungle and watched a human-like robot extinguish a shipboard fire, all in about an hour and without leaving town. It was possible because the Navy has opened a new Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) on the grounds of the Naval Research…
By Otto Kreisher
What’s new in naval radars and missiles: Defending the Pacific
Defending U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, Red Sea, and elsewhere require a range of systems from close-in weapons to anti-ballistic missiles.
WASHINGTON: The Navy has begun a critical phase in its quest for a revolutionary weapon that could reach out and touch someone with massive force at more than 100 miles, without using an ounce of gun powder or rocket fuel. The Navy has fired six test shots with the first of two industry prototypes of…
By Otto Kreisher
